Our attitude towards learning skiing is a significant factor because, depending on its orientation, it determines success and achievement or failure and frustration. Although it is based on our beliefs and on the positive/negative evaluations that we establish in each situation, we should not continually label our skiing as good or bad because they are limitations of our reality, that is, incomplete visions that lead to clinging to a certain situation by characterizing it, when we could see skiing as it is, that is, as another expression of our experiences.
Attitude is a model of response by means of a determined behavior in front of a situation, that is to say, our personal disposition that we adopt for the response. It has the particularity that it can be learned and is related to our motivation, being dynamic and modifiable. Generally, learning begins with a change of our attitude. If we understand the applications of what we are going to learn, we will surely adopt an open attitude to learning since we know beforehand what it will be useful for.
Adopting a proactive attitude means having a vision of where we want to go beforehand and, based on this, define achievable goals. If we do not have this perspective, it does not matter the learning path we decide to take because it will be the same. Not having this creative vision is to abandon ourselves to the conditions of each situation; it is to allow ourselves to be controlled by the environment instead of proactively influencing it.
Sometimes we get stuck and frustrated by not knowing how to define what we want and what we can ski. We tend to avoid the emotional tension that comes from not accepting our own level or, if we do accept it, we lower our own aspirations or attribute our stagnation to external factors. To change this scenario, emotional tension should be exchanged for creative tension.
According to Peter Senge, engineer, PhD in management, and director of M.I.T.’s Center for Organizational Learning, this creative tension (motivation) is generated by the difference between the desire of where we want to go (vision), i.e. to reach a certain level (ambition), and our own current situation (actual ability). If we are routed towards learning, generally we tend to move the energy generated in the aforementioned gap towards ambition. The creative tension is implanted from our vision for reaching a certain goal but it requires an accurate portrayal of our current reality. As often, the possible analyses we carry out are not enough to produce this vision, so we need the assistance of a professional ski instructor to indicate it to us.
Learning to ski is more than solving technical or strategic problems. Our energy to modify our motor behavior comes from the desire to avoid reactive effort. True learning should be through a proactive attitude, that is, from our desire to achieve a goal comes the energy to achieve our original vision. Sometimes we feel the obligation to change our skiing attitude only when we experience isolated crises that generate anxieties and frustrations, while these recurring crises may drive us to continue to excel by developing our potential.
As beginners we adopted, temporarily, an ignorant attitude, that is, we considered ourselves provisionally incompetent because we did not know and because we were incapable of performing the task. We could had been forgiven our mistakes because we did not know how to distinguish that our technique wasn’t appropriate.
As already skiers, when our own ill-advised actions affect others, when we waste effort and are unaware, when we need to learn to ski more efficiently but do not know how, then we may experience guilt or remorse for acting that way.
A good exercise is to reflect on what aspects of our own skiing we are ignorant of and in what situations we behave as such. Everyone has some degree of blindness and is ignorant in some aspect but we can look for opportunities to improve.
According to Fredy Kofman, executive coach and consultant on leadership and culture, in being an ‘ignorant’ skier, we face the following dilemmas:
- Our first option is to adopt an attitude of withdrawal, i.e., realizing that we do not know how we would like to ski, so we may decide not to learn. This attitude does not generate competition and, in turn, avoids the anguish of making mistakes.
- Our second choice is to take refuge under the attitude of the ‘fool’ by maintaining our same skiing, knowing that we do not know but pretending to know. For example, not knowing how to ski in deep snow, we try to do it and, knowing our own incompetence, do not accept to be helped by a professional. Not only that: we also commit other members of the group accompanying us to come to our aid. In the same way, being a ‘foolish’ skier, we may punish ourselves by suffering for our own foolishness in not accepting our own incompetence. We should recognize what aspects of our skiing we feel we are suffering from and then be able to determine if we are behaving incompetent in those areas.
- The third option is to become a beginner again, that is, to commit to learning by resuming the attitude of a learner, of openness to new learning experiences. Becoming a beginner again means opening ourselves to multiple possibilities. In western culture it is not customary to admit ourselves again as beginners because it is not easy to accept that we do not know. One of the reasons is that learning implies a high degree of commitment in terms of prioritizing the development of a new competence.
Commitment to learning involves certain breakthroughs. Re-knowing ourselves (getting to know ourselves again) as beginners as taking responsibility for re-learning by letting go of the idea that it is the ‘other’ (instructor, coach) who teaches but ourselves who develop our own competencies.
A fundamental aspect of the learning process is our attitude towards mistakes We should give ourselves permission to make mistakes because, when walking the path of re-learning, we may blame ourselves for our own mistakes when, in fact, the essential thing is to accept that there is no progress without mistakes since this is the way out of incompetence. We tend to learn based on trial and error and should take into account that very few times movements and actions are executed correctly on the first attempt.
The first step to achieve our goals is to rely on a good ski pro and give him or her the necessary authority to go through the learning process generating a framework of trust between both. Establish the necessary time and space to incorporate better skills and practice them conscientiously, without falling into the comfort of avoiding discomfort and, once the path has begun, always keeping in mind that in conscious learning we have to go through each step, since there are no easy shortcuts.
According to Weems Westfeldt, a professional ski instructor and writer, the attitude adopted means that a good apprentice can learn more from a bad instructor than a bad apprentice from a good instructor. To become good learners, we must decide that we are going to learn rather than be taught. We should maintain a positive attitude even in disadvantageous situations because there is always something useful to learn from them.
Proactive attitudes observed in the behavior of good learners are:
- Expressing own ignorance.
- Always asking questions.
- Constantly perceiving themselves as beginners.
- Undertaking new learning challenges.
- Looking for new ways to learn.
When learning something better we feel good. A positive change in our behavior predisposes a change in attitude towards ourselves. If we participate more, we can change our own attitude for the better. For people who have a resistant attitude toward skiing, persuading them to participate may help them to adopt a pro-skiing attitude.
Understanding our attitudes contributes to developing positive ones toward skiing or helping to change them. In certain situations, we need to adopt an aggressive attitude when facing a challenging situation and it is based on our own decision to face it. Changing our attitude changes our aptitude: assuming a decisive attitude favors concentration on how we face the circumstances. Being aggressive means facing the slope, daring, having confidence through an attitude of ‘going towards‘ the intended place. Having an aggressive attitude does not mean skiing aggressively as it induces power skiing, nor does it mean over-acting motorically as it creates muscular tension. It refers to using this attitudinal tool for certain cases in which confidence diminishes and the fear of not being able to appears.
